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Dear Annie: A father on hold

Columns

Dear Annie: My wife (40) and I (53) have been married for almost a year and a half. A few weeks ago, she moved out and took our daughters, ages 3 and 4, with her. When she left, she said they’d be back that evening. They haven’t returned. I haven’t seen or spoken to my girls in almost a month. When I ask to see or talk to them, my wife says she’s asked the children and they’ve said no, and that she doesn’t want to pressure them or cause them stress. My wife insists she’s protecting them because they’ve heard arguments between us. We’ve disagreed in front of the ...

Appalachian awakening: Rewriting American music culture

Columns

If there is such a thing as the classic Appalachian success story, the rise in popularity of the outside-the-box band Cigarettes @ Sunset would be that story. But nothing comes easy in Appalachia. The five-member band, which includes Garrett Dellinger, Ryland Bagbey, Sarah Vann, Wells Whitman and Ethan Moore, was born in the winter of 2022, practicing their music in the cold, unheated seats of the EDGE of the WORLD Snowboard Shop in Banner Elk, North Carolina. Four years later, they have amassed over 225,000 monthly Spotify listeners with a unique sound that blends lyrics about ...

Weighing the prognosis of a woman with stage III rectal cancer

Columns

DEAR DR. ROACH: My daughter, who’s 44 years old, was recently diagnosed with rectal cancer. It’s stage III and contained. She has no cancer in her liver, lymph nodes, rectum or colon. Her doctor is going to start her on a more aggressive chemo than he first thought of, then radiation. Since the cancer’s contained, once it’s removed, would her survival rate be better than someone whose cancer had spread to other organs? Would there be recurrences? — N.F.B. ANSWER: I’m sorry to hear of your daughter being diagnosed with colorectal cancer at such a young age. Normally, ...

Addressing factitious disorder, aka Munchausen syndrome

Columns

DEAR DR. ROACH: Could you address Munchausen syndrome and how to treat a person who might have it? What causes the constant talk about real or imagined illnesses, and is there a treatment for it? — Anon. ANSWER: Factitious disorder, sometimes called Munchausen syndrome after the 18th century German nobleman Baron Karl Friedrich Hieronymus von Munchhausen, who was famous for exaggerated stories that were published in English in 1785 and defied belief. The term “Munchausen syndrome” was coined in 1951 to describe people who intentionally fake or induce medical symptoms. There are ...

The temporary immigration program that’s been forever

Columns

The last two decades have been a continuous adventure in redefining the phrase “white supremacy” to include less and less pertinent things. The latest is that the Supreme Court has allegedly joined forces with Trump to “advance an authoritarian, white-supremacist agenda” — in the words of Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez — by saying he can end so-called Temporary Protected Status for immigrants. A headline in the left-wing magazine The Nation read, “The Supreme Court Once Again Endorses Trump’s Racism.” The court decision is facially correct in that the law ...

2026 isn’t the first time Christians have tried to claim the United States as their own

Columns

Amid celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary, assertions of the country’s religious, and specifically Christian, character have grown louder in political discourse. In May 2026, House Speaker Mike Johnson and other prominent officials participated in a prayer service in Washington, D.C. Johnson proclaimed, “We hereby rededicate the United States of America as one nation under God.” Though planners invoked the nation’s “Judeo-Christian” heritage, most religious leaders at the event came from the evangelical Christian tradition. In a prerecorded video, President Donald ...